Brazen Mistakes (Brazen Boys #3)

38. Clara

Chapter 38

Clara

T he view from the top of the Witch’s Hat is different now that everything’s covered in snow and ice, the leaves from the trees long gone.

Jansen hops up onto the stone railing, sitting with his back to one of the arches, and my heart stops. “Is that safe?” I ask.

“Not in the slightest. But it’s comfortable. And I can see both downtowns if I peek behind me.”

He goes to do just that, and my hand is on his shoulder immediately, not exerting any force, not wanting to startle him, but needing him to stay pressed against the stone. And he has the audacity to laugh.

“Are you nervous I’m going to fall, beautiful?”

“Yes. Like any sane person would be.”

He leans toward me, brushing his nose against mine, and as it brings his center of gravity away from the edge, I’m happy for it .

His hands band around my waist, pulling me closer. “Come up. The view’s fine.”

I peek over the edge, and while there are ridges and things, it looks distinctly unsafe. “No thank you.”

“I won’t let you fall, beautiful.”

His eyes, dark in the night, are impossible to read. But I’ve trusted him this far tonight. Just half an hour ago, I was in a police chase, for God’s sake. “Fine. But the second I feel unsteady, I’m back on the ground, where I should be.”

He shifts, dropping a leg down on either side of the railing, pulling me flush against his chest, my toes wishing they could reach the floor instead of dangling a few inches away from it. His arms hold me close, and while my heart jitters in my chest, I feel safe here. Safe enough to look out over the Mississippi, the lights of the city dreamlike as freezing steam swirls around them.

“So,” I say.

Jansen pulls off a mitten. “You want to hear about my biggest mistake?”

“Not if you don’t want to share. I won’t force you.” Not when I don’t want to share myself.

His other mitten comes off, tossed down to the floor beside us. “You know I used to steal cars when I was a kid. With my cousin, Austin, and Summer.”

“Yeah.”

One warm hand slips into my mitten, his fingers lacing between mine. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a kid. But Austin taught me so much. Not just about boosting cars, but about stealing in general. How to not hit up the same area for too many days in a row. How to always wear gloves. How a hat covering my hair could mean the difference between a jail sentence and a warning. Most important, to stop and look around, see what I was forgetting. The first few times we went out, I left half-drunk cans of Dr. Pepper, wrappers, and hoodies like I was shedding them. He even helped me learn how to not let the adrenaline take hold, how to stay calm and not just ride the waves of excitement. Because that’s when you make mistakes. Getting high on it and assuming you’re the best.”

I help him get his hand inside of my other mitten, and then I’m wrapped up in him, both of us holding me against his chest.

“It probably sounds terrible that my older cousin was teaching me to steal. But Austin saw what I was doing on my own, saw how haphazard I was, and knew I would keep stealing whether he stepped in or not. At least with him, I’d be safer. So I learned to shoplift, to pick pockets, to do all the basic stuff that didn’t require picking locks and still got me food for the table and clothes on my back. It’s tough to shoplift shoes, so picking pockets made the most sense for that.”

His chin settles on my shoulder, his breath and mine creating clouds covering the skyline. I turn, pressing a kiss on the corner of his mouth, wishing it would turn up in the corners, like it usually does. Instead, he presses his cheek against mine. “It was a long time ago. Honestly, at least two lifetimes ago. And Austin helping meant we had plenty of food for the first time in a while. Evie earned most of the rent, but there’s only so far babysitting money can go. But because I got so much better, Evie figured it out. She was so furious at Austin, she forbid me from seeing him. Of course I ignored her, but Evie never forgave him. Summer either.

“Anyway, one night we were out, Austin and Summer flirtier than ever, and I was an obvious third wheel. After our first run, I ducked out. We had a three-person system, thieving as a team sport. But earlier that morning, I’d seen a last notice on the counter, and my mom was holed up in her room, either from the news or just in general. We weren’t going to have electricity if we didn’t come up with the money to cover it. Adding to the situation, I’d been sick the last week, and we were running out of food. I needed money. And like the idiot kid I was, I assumed I could get it by myself.”

The warmth of his thighs on the outside of mine fights with the icy wind cutting through my jeans, bitter cold like the way this story is heading. “I found a likely looking car, but without a lookout and a distraction, people saw me break into it. But I figured I could drive well enough to get away.”

“How old were you then?”

“Fourteen.”

My heart clenches in my chest. So young for what has to be a sad story. Otherwise, why would he be so careful about the way he’s telling it?

His nose finds a spot on my neck, the icy touch making me want to jump, but the height and the heaviness of the story keeping me still in his arms.

“Anyway, I dodged the cops, did a couple loop backs, then started for the chop shop. Only something felt weird. I called Austin, and he immediately knew what was up. The car I’d stolen had LoJack, and I hadn’t realized it. The cops weren’t there because they were looking for me other ways. All my extra switchbacks and loops had given them the time to find my location. I was such an idiot. The car looked old, but it turns out that model was one of the first with tracking, and I had no fucking idea.

“Austin wasn’t far away by the time I figured out I’d fucked up. I pulled over and he immediately set about killing the tracking. Only by then, they had the location. Summer was there, chewing me out, but none of us knew I was worse than an idiot. I fucked up so badly, Clara.” He sighs, his fingers wrapping around mine in my mittens.

“Austin shared a look with Summer, shoved me into the passenger seat, and off we went. But the cops already had eyes on us. They wanted to follow us to the chop shop, to use us as bait for a bigger fish. One of the cops must have been a rookie or something, though, because Austin caught sight of him when we were a half a dozen blocks from the shop. We pulled over on a random side street and abandoned the car. It wasn’t worth it.

“But I was exactly the idiot kid Summer had accused me of being. We’d run a block and a half, jumping fences so the cops couldn’t follow us in their cars, when I realized I’d forgotten my sweatshirt in the car. And the damn hoodie pocket had my house keys and a receipt from a shop across the street from my apartment.”

Jansen’s legs swing, his breathing losing its even pace as he squeezes me tighter. “I was so fucked. The car was going to be found any minute, and it was going to lead them right to my doorstep. Literally. Austin, though, he didn’t get mad. He just turned around and sprinted back. We had to break back into the damn thing so I could get my shit out of it. It was awful, Clara. My skin was crawling, all I wanted to do was cry, and I hadn’t done that in years at that point. We got into it, and Austin crawled into the back to make sure I didn’t leave anything else. Right as he was straddling the center console, the fucking cops pulled up, blocking us in on one side.

“They brought so many cruisers, Clara. So many. They knew the chop shop was near where we were, and we were going to be the final piece they needed to get it. There were cops absolutely everywhere. And Austin was trapped in the car. I tried to yank him out, but he kept yelling at me to go, to get out of there. I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay. It was my fuck up. And I was a kid. I was looking at juvie, which would have sucked, but whatever. Austin, though, had turned eighteen only five days earlier. He was an adult.”

I hold my breath, knowing the ending of this story, even though I haven’t heard it before.

“The cops came out, guns drawn, and I didn’t know what to do. Then Austin rolled out of the other side of the car, running toward the cops. All those guns swiveled to him, and I froze, stepping back into the shadow of a fence, my dark hoodie up, helping me disappear. Plus, who was looking for some kid who didn’t look older than twelve on a good day? But Austin noticed I wasn’t running. The look he gave me, Clara, I’ll never forget it.”

He swallows, his breath jagged against my ear. “He could have died. Nine times out of ten, he would have been shot for what he did next. But after turning away, he put his hands up. And as a cop approached to cuff him, after he was lying on the ground, Austin came up swinging, screaming, ‘Fuck off!’

“It broke my trance, and I sprinted away, letting those tears out, running until I was too tired to keep moving, then stumbling the rest of the way back home, lost in my terror. When I got home, Evie was ready to lecture me about some shit, I don’t know what, but I went straight to my mom. And I cried like a kid, like a scared little kid.”

His grip on me loosens, his breath becoming even. “I get that’s what I was, a kid, but at the time, the crying was almost worse than what had happened. At least for a few days. But then, the legal system did what it does. And because Austin resisted arrest, broke a cop’s nose even, they didn’t go easy on him. He had a couple of shoplifting priors, which didn’t help.

“He was sent away. My aunt, who’d only been half present anyway, disappeared. My mom tried to visit him once a month, when we could find a car that worked. But she wouldn’t let Evie or me go with her. Then they moved him and moved him again. My mom met my stepdad, and we left the city. Through it all, we lost touch with Austin. I only found him a few months ago with RJ’s help. I’ve sent him a few letters, but it feels weird. He’s serving my sentence. My mistakes took years away from Austin. I can’t fix that. All I can do is try not to fuck up again.”

We sit in silence; me stroking his fingers with mine, warm in the shared mittens. “Is that why you’re so tidy?”

“I learned an impossible lesson when it comes to being responsible with my shit.”

“How did Summer react?”

“I think she hated me. Maybe she still does. Hated herself, too. And maybe Austin. I don’t know. She disappeared. We never worked together again, even though I kept doing jobs when we needed the cash. Before we moved.”

I lean back against him. “I’m sorry, Jansen.”

“It was a long time ago. And Austin said he might be eligible for parole next year, so hopefully we can put it behind us.”

With a deep breath for courage, I pull my hands from the mittens and carefully maneuver so I’m facing him. Bracketing his face in my hands, I press my lips to his. “I’m glad you had someone looking out for you, even if it didn’t turn out well.”

“Me too.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Yeah. He and I were closer those few years than Evie and I were. He was my big brother, not just my cousin. Not that we were ever mistaken for siblings, not like Evie and me, but he was at our house almost as often as he was at Summer’s grandma’s, bursting in with shoplifted snacks and flopping onto the couch with a smile.” He grins, some of the light coming back into his eyes.

“What would he think about you now? You said he taught you all you know.”

He sighs, a cloud between us. “I have no idea, Clara. But him going to jail didn’t change the fact we needed food, so I took what I’d learned and got better. I had to be. There aren’t many second chances with what we do.”

“No. I don’t suppose there are.”

I press my head to his chest, wishing I could hear his heart through the layers between us. His arms loop around me, no longer squeezing me, but keeping me close. Small tugs on my hair tell me he’s fiddling with my curls.

I look out over the city, everything small from this high .

“I get why you like it up here.”

“It’s hard to feel out of control when you can see so much at once.”

I close my eyes. “I wish that worked for me. It feels like I’m a whisper of wind from falling into chaos.”

He scoops my knees over his so he can slide me closer. “Me too. But up here, sometimes, the chaos seems a little farther away.”

“What about tonight?”

His mittened hands come and cover mine where they press against his chest, my fingers getting numb. “No. Not tonight. But maybe next time I’ll get lucky.”